Keys to Having a great picture day!

We know you want beautiful photos but equally important we know you want a smooth picture day! Nobody wants to wait in long lines or have a bad experience with a disorganized picture day. So, here are a few tips for our youth league partners to insure that PICTURE DAY GOES GREAT!
  1. Pick a suitable venue BUT if you have a place that worked in the past DON'T CHANGE!
a. Outdoors: A lot goes in to picking a location and there are certain rules to follow. We can't take photos straight in to the sun. Parents want photos of their children, not a new shiny scoreboard or sign on a building. Avoid locations with a lot of foot traffic or cars in the background if possible. Trees, sky and natural landscapes make the best backgrounds!
b. Indoors: Gyms, Community Centers, and school cafeterias are usual locations for picture days done in doors. Just make sure that the rooms are large enough to pose a team photo and that the photographer can stand back at least 20 feet. Crowd control is important with indoor locations to cut down noise and insure teams can be processed efficiently so it is very helpful if officials from your league can help with that aspect of picture day.
2. Make a sensible schedule in consultation with our office. We don't want to rush families and we always prefer longer more relaxed schedules where possible. We highly recommend giving each team a unique time! So rather than 3 teams every 30 minutes you can schedule 1 team every 10 minutes which creates a flow rather than a rush with downtime at the end of the rush.

Example of each team having a unique time:
8:00 Team 1
8:15 Team 2
8:30 Team 3

You might also choose to put in an open period once in a while. For example

10:30 Open

TAKE AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE: We are in no hurry, parents don't like to have their children rushed, and nobody likes crowds. For example , if you have 200 athletes to photograph there is no reason to try to do that in 3 hours if you can schedule it over 6 hours. We love REALXED picture days! Nobody ever complains "Picture Day was too relaxed!"

3. Be sure to pass out our order forms in advance. We have electronic versions that you can email to parents BUT not everyone can print a form at home and\or visit a website. Paper forms are still widely used, easy to understand, and the simplest choice for many families so we always ask leagues to pass them out.

  1. Be sure to have someone meet our staff 1 hour before the first picture time!
We do request that a league official meet our staff an hour before picture time and make sure that all gates and doors are unlocked and that we have plenty of time to set up for the picture day. Please let us know the cell phone for this person and we will provide our staff' cell phones as well. If you have league volunteers, we ask that they help with crowd control. If your photos are outdoors, we generally don't need help past meeting us to guide us to the location, if photos are indoors we generally ask that a league official remain to control crowds and be the contact point for whomever runs the facility.

We know you want beautiful photos but equally important we know you want a smooth picture day!  Nobody wants to wait in long lines or have a bad experience with a disorganized picture day. So, here are a few tips for our youth league partners to insure that PICTURE DAY GOES GREAT!

1.      Pick a suitable venue BUT if you have a place that worked in the past DON’T CHANGE!

a.      Outdoors: A lot goes in to picking a location and there are certain rules to follow. We can’t take photos straight in to the sun. Parents want photos of their children, not a new shiny scoreboard or sign on a building. Avoid locations with a lot of foot traffic or cars in the background if possible. Trees, sky and natural landscapes make the best backgrounds!

b.      Indoors:  Gyms, Community Centers, and school cafeterias are usual locations for picture days done in doors. Just make sure that the rooms are large enough to pose a team photo and that the photographer can stand back at least 20 feet.  Crowd control is important with indoor locations to cut down noise and insure teams can be processed efficiently so it is very helpful if officials from your league can help with that aspect of picture day.

2.     Make a sensible schedule in consultation with our office.  We don’t want to rush families and we always prefer longer more relaxed schedules where possible.  We highly recommend giving each team a unique time!  So rather than 3 teams every 30 minutes you can schedule 1 team every 10 minutes which creates a flow rather than a rush with downtime at the end of the rush.

 

Example of each team having a unique time:

8:00 Team 1

8:15 Team 2

8:30 Team 3

 

You might also choose to put in an open period once in a while.  For example

 

10:30 Open

 

TAKE AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE:   We are in no hurry, parents don’t like to have their children rushed, and nobody likes crowds.  For example , if you have 200 athletes to photograph there is no reason to try to do that in 3 hours if you can schedule it over 6 hours. We love REALXED picture days!  Nobody ever complains “Picture Day was too relaxed!”

 

3.      Be sure to pass out our order forms in advance.  We have electronic versions that you can email to parents BUT not everyone can print a form at home and\or visit a website.  Paper forms are still widely used, easy to understand, and the simplest choice for many families so we always ask leagues to pass them out.   

 

4.     Be sure to have someone meet our staff 1 hour before the first picture time!

We do request that a league official meet our staff an hour before picture time and make sure that all gates and doors are unlocked and that we have plenty of time to set up for the picture day.  Please let us know the cell phone for this person and we will provide our staff’ cell phones as well.  If you have league volunteers, we ask that they help with crowd control. If your photos are outdoors, we generally don’t need help past meeting us to guide us to the location, if photos are indoors we generally ask that a league official remain to control crowds and be the contact point for whomever runs the facility.